


Down the Black Hole

by saphsaq



Series: Near-Human [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rise of Empire Era - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, Coruscant, Force Visions, LiMerge Building (Star Wars), Mos Eisley, Naboo - Freeform, Other, Tatooine, Theet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:14:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1823005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saphsaq/pseuds/saphsaq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: How Darth Sidious sent out his apprentice Darth Maul and the female trooper for what is thought the Endgame in a Grand Plan.</p><p>Timeline: During TPM, because now all players of the Dark Side are on the game board. Featuring the Darth Maul after the fanfic “Urban Legends and other Oddities” (part of “<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/790597">Page 51</a>”) and during Dark Horse's comic “<a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars%3A_Darth_Maul">Star Wars: Darth Maul</a>” (published from September to December 2000).</p><p>Sources: <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_I:_The_Phantom_Menace">TPM</a>, the <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_%28TV_series%29">The Clone Wars cartoons</a> and the <a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page">Wookieepedia</a> – as well as the air of another century.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Got 'em?” I listened for an answer to my comlink, but it kept just blinking. However, it was the signal Maul and I had agreed as the call to assemble at the Scimitar. So instead repeating my question, I keyed in acknowledgement, then cut off the connection. A fair number of standards had passed since we did split off at the place near Mos Espa where Maul's spaceship was stashed. But still there was a feeling the boy had send me to distant Mos Eisley not because I could do some reconnaissance work for him, but to have me out of his way. 

It were the peak hours of the double-sun and the unpaved streets of Mos Eisley Spaceport held only dusk in the colour of the surrounding desert. The very same dusk, dried to bricks solid like the rock of the Great Mesa in the back of the city, provided the material for its buildings. Box after box, narrow-chested and vaulted, was stacked against another. On occasion in more than one horizontal layer. A sprawling maze of windowless walls, following no apparent idea of order, but perhaps mirroring the borders of the extended excavations beneath them. 

I succeeded finding me a transport not before been desperate enough to accept the mile-long walk to my getaway speeder bike as a potential option. It was almost in the outskirts of the city, when I spotted a small flock of landspeeders in front of a cantina. Only topless models despite I would have rather preferred a hard-top for the ride, because my goggles where at the bike. Well, still better than walking.

The parking lot was not more than a pocket of a street in bright day light. I looked around from under the cowl of my cloak. A fat kreetle flatted itself against the dirty-white loam plaster of the wall to catch some shadow. Either because being frightened by me or because it realised the futility of it's attempts, the insect let itself eventually fall on the ground and dragged off. When the annoyed click-clack of its mandibles had faded, I was completely alone. The Mos-Eislians had better things to do than to become slowly dehydrated on the boiling street level of their planet. I felt the sand between my teeth and toyed for a moment with the idea of swiftly following their sensible example and descending the stairs behind the cantina door into the cool and dark cave with the beer-tap at its farthest end. Instead I bend over the vehicle's control panel and bypassed the lock. The name plate read 'Owen'.

At Corusant the speeder would only fit as a leaflet-dispenser in a retro-themed droid-spa. But it was well-kept. Some stuff mounted on it indicated ex-owner Owen was a farmer. Not likely in any liaison with the Hutts, which did reduce the possibility for chasing me greatly. Nevertheless, I could not take chances - outside the city-limits I pushed the throttle mercilessly. However, instead of making it up immediately to the Great Mesa where I had hid my bike, I pointed the speeder's nose toward fifty miles away Anchorhead. Either there or in Tosche Station I would find another vehicle to change. That would prolong my journey for approximately an standard hour but also erase my traces effectively.

After a few miles, in a dip, a most welcome short-cut presented itself. A bantha herd was licking the thin crust of a salt pan and the controls of the speeder did sound off a nervous beeping. I was startled, but when I read 'live stock sensor' I laughed. Those animals were marked, indicating they belonged to a ranch and had been very likely broken in. Not as good as the handily build and mild mannered dewbacks, but not too bad either. It took me only a moment to find the right adjusting collar for the menu. At worlds where nearly all peasants are moisture farmers instead real ranchers they have no qualms to use pre-programmed herding routines. I leaned back and let the speeder doing its thing – setting out into a wide arc, circling the animals with howling engines.

Two rounds and a mouthful of sand later a calf was separated from the roused herd. I use the term calf only loosely, because despite its youth it was a large-mouthed hunk of brawn, long fur and mighty horns. I killed the engine. Hopefully my designated mount would not run away, leaving me in a pretty cinch. But the animal just stud and watched me rather curious with wide eyes and nostrils. Whatever it pored over behind its broad forehead it didn't even blink but dropped a pat while I drained the power-cells of the speeder and littered its seats with a couple of beverage containers I had picked up on Mos Eisley's dirty streets.

Then the calf let me and my daypack climb on its almost endless looking back. A last glance over the abandoned vehicle - 'end of a joyride' was written all over the place - and we cantered off. A good tracker would be able to read more than what I intended to show. A bad one wouldn't even suspect one of the banthas had left the place after the stampede and with an extra burden. Well, on Tatooine rain is more likely than a proper investigation of a case of a stolen speeder. 

I aimed now without hesitation for the cliff forming the foot of the Great Mesa. What appeared from afar like a solid wall revealed soon deep cut canyons. They bore poetic names like 'White Roses Gorge' or 'Valley of Wine Fragrance' I had learned. Whatever the Tatooinians saw in the red and yellow striped stone, for me the they were labelled light or not so light uphill travel. The calf proved to be very docilely and simple to steer. We made nice progress through a rather steep ravine and it didn't even mind to change over a scree field of sharp edged debris into a second ravine when the first one became a dead-end.

Once on top at the highland of the Great Mesa I stopped and checked for the homing beacon of my bike. It was faint and I let the bantha stride. The sandy soil of this exposed place was baked by the heat and polished by the wind to a tile-like durability. The bantha's three-nailed hooves left no imprint.

Far at the horizon a tiny star ascended into the cloudless sky. Then another one and another one. Spaceships of visitors and racers of the Bonta Eve flying home. Military-grade binoculars would allow to make out the sleek Nubian amongst them. With their two Jedi protectors removed, the lad's Force touch should have without difficulty persuaded Queen Amidala and her entourage readily into returning to Naboo, where the Neimodian representatives of the Trade Federation waited nervously with paper and quill.

When I arrived where the bike was stored, Tatooine's twin-suns seemed to have tilted a wee bit already. I unmounted, patted the calf a 'wait for me' and climbed around a rocky projection. The bike leaned in a sort of flat cave, a few feet below the level of the mesa. I removed some briar-branches I had used to cover it and saw a scurrier living up its name. Yet the machine purred like a pittin and I jumped up to the plain. The calf, my insurance against eaten cables and defunct electronic, still waited. I had a swig of water from one of my canteens and gave the rest to the bantha. Pensively it chewed the last drops as I flew off. The shadows cast by even the smallest pebble seemed to grow by the minute albeit it was long before sunset.

The wind dried sweat and sand on my face to a cover as hard as the salt-crust in the pan I had found the banthas. Perhaps the calf was meanwhile reunited with its herd? If banthas posses a sense for their kin like clones do... I stopped to drink, then draw a protecting veil over my face. The twin-suns now descended visibly and atop the mesa the air was already temperate. It would take hours however until the lowland too had lost its heat. Some black dots in a distance reminded me to be aware of Tusken Raiders. Pushing the throttle I flew again over the plain, the tall peaks of the Mospic Great Range my guide. Two miles west of it, on a light elevation called 'Ubitza's Table' after some long forgotten Hutt gangster, Maul's ship waited for me.

I arrived at the Scimitar when the shadows where darker, yet not drained of red and filled with the purple-blue of the late hours. With Maul's task accomplished, we should have breakfast at Corusant. Hurriedly I stored my bike aside the lad's. There was not the tiniest mote of dust on Bloodfin as if its owner had not used it or already found time for cleaning. The landing hatch of the Scimitar closed behind me like a large maw, but the cool darkness of its throat was something to enjoy after the Tatooine desert.

The boy sat indeed in the cockpit, hands on the controls as if to take off every moment. I asked: “All done?”

“All gone,” responded Maul without looking at me.

At first I thought he made some wordplay. Lord Sidious had been not that specific about capture or killing, about the queen signing those papers or not been able to refuse to sign them... Then I noticed Maul's hands trembled. I shrugged and rummaged in my daypack to have some water: “Either way ---” A wave of raging hatred, irate and desperate at the same time knocked the breath out of me. My muscles cramped, my fingers clawed painfully hard around the last full canteen. I fell into the copilot’s chair, a bloody red clouding my vision.

* * *

When I emerged from the nausea, my only companion in the cockpit was the bluish light of hyperspace. The daypack and its contents were removed and I neatly strapped in the co-pilote's harness. Yet the lad hadn't locked the controls and some button pushing retrieved the information we were home bound. That answered but one question and I thought, I should keep asking.

A Star Courier is hardly a place to get lost. Especially if it's heavily armed and modified. I found Maul submerged in some tinkering in that nook of the Scimitar which was stocked up as repair-shop. The Zabrak's fingers danced nimbly amongst a small cloud of bits, which was obviously his lightsabre broken up in parts and suspended by the Force. He didn't gave a sign he had noticed me, so I squatted at the other side of the work bench to wait for him to finish his task.

Finally the reassembled hilt of the double-blade laid on the leather cloth. Maul's face with its red and black tattoos was looking like a tight mask more then ever. His hands hovered for a moment in the air, as if giving his creation a final blessing. Suddenly he lowered them and disassembled the weapon with fast and determined motions. Then he reached for some polishing cloth. When he throw it a few dabs later into the trash bin of the work bench, I saw it was full, almost flowing over. The lad must have worked on his lightsabre since hours.

“Looks definitely clean to me,” I said.

The bits, one by one, raised to form the small cloud again.

After experiencing the lull of the repeated motions for another while, I opened my mouth again, but the boy did beat me to the punch. “I could have ripped the ship out of the sky,” he hissed under his breath.

I watched his skilled fingers again dismantling and cleaning and fitting the crystals of the lightsabre before I dared to ask the obvious. “The queen?”

“On the ship.”

“And the Jedi?”

Maul's hands became unsure. Snarling irately he hit the leather clad work bench with a fist and I twitched at the thought he would shatter his precious blade. Yet “Guess!” he roared hoarsely, putting the weapon very carefully down.

“Whisked ship and party away with some last ditch effort, destination Corusant?”

Mutely Maul stroke the lightsabre as if thinking about starting his work all over again. His head was low, his powerful shoulder as close a they could be to slumping. When he eventually opened his mouth, he did not respond to my question: “Did I ever tell you how my master found me?” Maul's hands stilled and his voice became delicate like the chat at a Grizmallt high-tea: “He lifted the piece of cloth I was sitting under and said 'Very good my little one. Hiding is what you'll do for a long time from now on.' I had been indeed good at sneaking in and stealing. 'twas my ticket for survival in the brotherhood. Actually I was too young for that sort of business --- And I didn't like hiding very well to be honest --- You may ask what was with my parents. My mother was one of those ---,” Maul gestured vaguely, turning his head to look in some undetermined distance: “She's from Dathomir. I was her first pregnancy and of course she wished for a girl. They eat those roots to enforce that. This very winter was a shortage and so -- She was not very happy. Well, I have to say for her, she gave me back to Iridonia, where my father was buried. But when she died, in a row with some other coven, my foster parents received not longer payment for me. And back I went to Dathomir! They have a system there, a lottery to distribute males. That's how I came to my brotherhood.”

I had not interrupted his speech, because a confession was a rare thing to have from Maul even after been together since such a long time. But be it from the subtle changes in the way he held his body or from the growl returned into his speech, I felt the boy had finally wound down. “What brought your master there?”

“Actually, a long range plasma freighter,” the lad looked me into the eyes, his face tattoos contorting into something fierce but playful when he grinned. “Don't ask me how he knew that he would find me at the fourth day of the spring moon at the eight double-hour cowering under a desk with a chequered table-cloth in the 'Blue Desert Space Port Hotel'.” I must have stared open mouthed at this revelation, because Maul lifted with two fingers gently my chin. “It was an azure and white chequered cloth. Very faded and with long but thinning frills.”

“Okay, I don't ask.”

Maul stared again at his lightsabre, but did not touch it: “I don't know it. I really don't know it. There are two ways to identify a --- worthy adept of the Force.” I let pass this little bump in his yarn uncommented. “Two major ways, to be exact. One employing sorcery of sorts and one relaying on computation. Both of noble ancestry --- yet I never learned which school master Sidious actually followed. In fact,” Maul grimaced, this time not playful, “I never cared. Because I just **see** the potential of a Force sensitive! Ask me and I can point them out in a crowd as big as the one assembling on Malastare for a podrace. I've seen a lot. But at closer look none appeared worthy.” I refrained from suggesting 'over choice paralysis' and from explaining, that I experience likewise in large retail shops.

“Take for instance these two Jedies,” Maul continued. “They are not without power over the Force and posses a self-reliance rare in their order. The older one is quite a blade. The younger one, albeit coming across as gruff and immature, is loyal to the utmost.”

“You sound downright compassionate.”

“Just know your enemy.” Maul rasped a chuckle and suddenly I understand that, despite the imperative to wipe all his adversaries out, each was a person to him: “So you spared them for another encounter?”

“No!”

“And what's with Sidious' order?”

“No,” said Maul yet this time quieter. Then he stirred, his hands gripping the lightsabre hard. “It is the boy.”

"What?" I was confused, thinking for a moment Maul referred to himself.

“The boy. This child the old Jedi carried with him from Mos Espa. I've never felt greater compassion in a living being. Such a small light in the Force, but blinding me nevertheless when I was fighting with his keeper. He was afraid of loosing him.”

“Well, that will make him a good healer when he grows up.”

“Quite contrary,” growled Maul between clenched teeth. “Quite contrary.” His eyes blazed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Rise and come over here.”

While I stirred to comply with Palpatine's bidding, I glanced furtively to Maul. Still kneeling like he had greeted his master, he was now staring straight at some point beyond the permaglass of the tall windows at the farther end of the room. The expression on his face was that of acute concentration. The permaglass was grimy and dulled by years of acidic rain on the outside. But I doubted the lad was interested in the vista of The Works right now. 

Then I noticed, Palpatine had actually stretched out a hand, toning down his order to an invitation. I took this for a good sign, because our reception after the botched Naboo mission had been a frosty one. We were not allowed into the senator's private quarters at Republica 500, we had been detoured to The Works in the last moment during approach of Coruscant. However, Maul's master didn't went to such lengths to demand landing the Scimitar in the abandoned power plant and meeting us between nuclear waste. Graciously we had been admitted to the LiMerge Building, the former corporate headquarters of The Works - and recently the Sith's. Together with that I was even more ready to consider the outstretched hand a small silver lining.

With more confidence I went to cross the room. It was big, but not vast. Not exactly an oblong it opened like a fan from a double door to the wall with the windows. The slight bend of this wall told that this room was situated in the upper third of the column-shaped building. Some of the windows were actually glass doors, leading to a balcony girding the edifice. 

Palpatine was standing close to one of the windows, a mere dark cut-out, and I expected him perhaps taking me out to the the balcony for a four-eye talk. But instead Palpatine suddenly retracted his hand, burying it in the folds of his robes. When he brought it out again, his hand held the shiny hilt of a light sabre. I stopped in my tracks. 

Palpatine smiled - the change was subtle but profound. There seemed to peel layers of meaning away from the walls, as if they shed their flaky paint and plaster. Noises seeped into the room, sloshing like water in a tank. The whispers of all the people it had seen holding meetings once. They had have a lot of caf, I could smell it. But not only that... Inquiring I looked at the master. He had shed his skin too. With averted eyes, all his worldliness, all his glibness seemed to be stripped off. It was as if I saw the real Palpatine for the first time. And he was closer to me than my clone-siblings. The one truly understanding and caring for me. My other half, never betraying me, never leaving me high and dry... I felt urged to close the respectful distance I had kept with one big stride, to fall on my knees and pledge loyalty. I knew, that light sabre in his hand was meant for me. I had held the Mandalorians' dark sabre not sure what to do with it. I knew, with this one that couldn't happen. It would fit my hand, becoming like a limb of my limbs, a powerful extension of myself. It was meant for me... 

“It's hard to understand what you find in someone who is an absolute zero in the Force, Lord Maul.”

Like bitten by a Lothal bloodfly I jumped back. Almost. Sidious' grip was too strong. It was as if he had suddenly his arm around my waist. But he had not even touched me with a finger. Only with great effort I managed to turn my head and look back at Maul - he still knelt unmoving, yet his head seemed to have been dragged down an inch or two by its weight. 

“Did he tell you how I did find him?” Darth Sidious continued tightening his hold, dragging me closer, “this heart-warming story of an orphan, half Zabrak, half Nightbrother? How he cowered under the blue and white chequered table cloth after trying to lift unsuccessfully a silver shaving kit from my suitcase?”

Maul's lids where almost closed. Only the lighter orange of the apples of his eyes shone through small slits. His face appeared to bereft of all emotions, not a single thought rippling its dull surface. He must be very deep in meditation.

“In truth,” Sidious grabbed my chin with invisible fingers made of iron. He forced my head to turn until I saw only him. There was a yellowish glow in his eyes which seared my very core. “I truth he's a full-blooded Zabrak I picked up as a young man in the dungeon of Falleen prince by the name of Xixor - a princeling then, now inhering the dregs of Black Sun from Alexi Garin. Remember him Lord Maul? Alexi Garin!” The last line was spoken with such a malignant pronunciation, I expected every moment a Force Lightning to be hurled on Maul. But Sidious just kept forth talking: “My apologies for digressing. Where was I? Ah, yes, the dungeon. Not that this young Zabrak was particularly talented. They just have this custom on Iridonia to dedicate one of each family to be trained as a warrior. Was it 'each third'? Or 'each eighth'?” Sidious chuckled. “How negligent of me to forget. I think, they try to emulate the donation of Force sensitives to the Jedi Temple.” He chuckled again. “Just a stupid tradition, hollow and meaningless. Am I right, Lord Maul?” The Sith Master's eyes where suddenly not longer sulphuric abysses but like bright pools enticing me to drown. “Sometimes I wonder if I could not do such a teaching again.”

“That is not beyond your powers, master. But it wouldn't be the same.” The lad's raspy voice ripped me out of my sick revelry in Darth Sidious' eyes and yarn. The whispering of the past, which had swirled around us died away and the light in the room changed as if the walls had chased to exist. But it wasn't the light of a star. It was the light of a starship's exhaust. And then of a fire when the starship speared almost into the core of Coruscant... This future battle was fought with modern technology I barely had a name for, with scores of soldiers modelled after my pattern. Yet beneath it, it was ancient sorcery pitted against ancient sorcery. And I wondered which one would win... 

“I'm sorry --- I'm so sorry,” Palpatine suddenly spoke up, and I realised how close I was standing to him. His invisible grip was gone, carefully I took a step back. With a silken handkerchief Palpatine blotted his forehead, then he crumpled it. Watching the spoiled ball of cloth in his hand with an oddly pensive gaze, he said quietly: “Would you excuse us? Lord Maul and I have some unimportant negotiation I don't want to bore you with.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Beware!** Unbetaed as a text can be. And very much a work in progress.


End file.
